Dealing with power crisis: Cancel gas contract with Nigeria – Tarzan

Former Chief Executive Officer of the Volta River Authority (VRA), Dr. Charles Wereko-Brobby says Ghana should cancel the contract it entered into with Nigeria for the supply of gas.

According to him, Nigeria has failed to respect the terms of the agreement the VRA signed with Nigeria Gas Company (N-Gas), for the supply of gas to power Ghana’s thermal plants.

Ghanaians are enduring erratic power supply again after electricity consumers contended with a year-long load management in 2013. Currently, there is a shortage in the supply of gas from Nigeria to power thermal plants in Takoradi to generate power to complement what is produced from the Akosombo Hydro-electric Dam.

Speaking on the Super Morning Show, Monday, Dr. Wereko-Brobby who signed the contract on behalf of the country with the N-Gas in the year 2002 when he was Chief Executive of the VRA said, Ghana must insist on “Nigeria meeting the terms of the contract which they have not done so far”.

“To solve today’s problems, VRA and the government of Ghana should use whatever muscle it can muster to ensure that N-Gas delivered that which it had signed on to [120 million standard cubic feet] and delivers it consistently”.

Dr. Wereko-Brobby who is now the Chief Policy Analyst at the Ghana Institute of Public Policy Options (GIPPO) says, it is only when Nigeria delivers on the agreement that the VRA can execute its plan of generating enough power to meet the demands of consumers.

” If it [Nigeria] does, then all these plans that are littered around which cannot run because they don’t have fuel, there will be fuel for the them to run.”

Ghana Gas promise a hoaxMeanwhile, Tarzan, as he is also called described as a hoax, any expectation that the Ghana’s gas project at Atuabo in the Western Region -which is four years behind schedule- would begin supplying gas by June this year.

Officials of the Ghana Gas Company a couple of weeks ago indicated, works on the plant were almost complete assuring that the plant will start supplying gas by first week of May, 2014. But Tarzan is surprised that a company which had struggled to source for funding for the project, is promising gas in a little over a month.

“That’s a hoax! Because even the pipelines that you build from Atuabo to join Takoradi, they haven’t got money for it so I don’t know why they are promising us gas…We need to solve this problem in a systematic way so that we don’t do ‘dum-sor dum-sor’…,” he said.

VRA’s lesson on giving timelinesIn other developments, the VRA says it cannot give the exact timeline for which the current load shedding exercise will last.

Samuel Fletcher, Director of Communications told host of the Super Morning Show, Bernard Nasara Saibu that past experiences have proved to them that giving dates rather put them under undue pressure.

Mr. Fletcher was however confident the situation would have improved before the Easter festivities.

“I’ve learnt my lesson with giving dates because, they don’t to seem to work properly in the kind of sector in which we are…But I can say on authority that before Easter, the situation will improve. It will get better, Mr. Fletcher promised.